This is a story from last fall, found on a link from a story about drones. The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service claimed that a series of forest fires across Europe were set as a part of a new al Qaeda strategy of a “thousand cuts.” Alexander Bortnikov said that setting fires in the countries of the European Union is part of the terrorist group’s low-cost attack strategy.

In linking al-Qaeda to the deadly wildfires, Mr Bortnikov pointed to calls to launch a “forest jihad” by various extremist websites which he said also publish detailed instructions about how and where to best carry out arson.

He said it was very difficult for special services to find and prosecute such arsonists.

Deadly fires have swept through forest land in EU countries such as Portugal and Spain over the past few months, killing scores of people and forcing thousands to evacuate.

In September, a forest fire in the Spanish region of Valencia forced authorities to evacuate around 2,000 people from their homes. More than 184,000 hectares of land in Spain alone were destroyed by fires between January 1 and September 16, according to the Spanish agriculture ministry — the highest amount in a decade.

Although the Obama administration has insisted that al Qaeda has been decimated, they were alive and well in Benghazi and elsewhere. In its continuing terror attack against the West, al Qaeda has vowed to “bleed the enemy to death” by resorting to inexpensive, low-scale attacks which it refers to as a “strategy of a thousand cuts.”

Last year, David Petraeus , as director of the CIA said that while al Qaeda had been weakened by the death of Osama bin Laden, the organization remained a significant threat to the U.S. because of their willingness to work through these smaller-scale attacks. Our drone attacks are clearly an excellent tool for al Qaeda recruitment. Americans approve of drone strikes which prevent harm to our military. Other countries are not favorably disposed.

During the Great Depression, there were large numbers of forest fires in the West, many suspected to be arson-caused. Unemployment was very high, and pay for firefighters was well above average. I hope somebody is monitoring those extremist websites. In case you didn’t have enough to worry about.……………………………………………………Photo: EPA/NUNO Andre Ferreira
In Portugal, firefighters are apparently called “Bombieros” — what a splendid name for very hard and dangerous work.